This invention relates to transcription mechanisms for use with tape players and in particular for use with portable cassette magnetic players.
A wide variety of tape players have been produced for use with magnetic tape cassettes, which are well known. Such tape players, which often have recording capabilities as well, take many forms, some of which are quite costly, e.g., high fidelity machines and equipment designed for office dictation, and many of which are relatively inexpensive, e.g., various forms of portable players. While cassette players are conceptually useable for dictation and transcription, only those machines designed for the jobs of dictation and transcription have been conveniently useable for that purpose. This is particularly true for transcription.
In transcription, it is particularly desirable to be able to control the movement of the tape incrementally, and to be able to do so without manipulating hand operated controls. Usually, a foot pedal of some type is connected to the apparatus and operation of the foot pedal selectively advances, rewinds and stops the tape. This allows the person transcribing the tape to listen to a small portion, to transcribe it onto paper, and to back-up or rewind the tape.
The very expensive high fidelity type of recorders are, of course, not designed with this capability in mind and it is unusual for such machines to be utilized for this purpose. Similarly, the inexpensive portable cassette tape players are also not designed with this capability. Such players, typically, are provided with a series of push button controls for operating the machine. Operation of the control button governs selection of the various operating modes of the player, i.e., rewind or reverse, fast forward, playback, and record. The control button includes a push button and a mechanical linkage connected to the push button. Depression of the push button effects operation of the player in a desired mode. In addition, the control button mechanism itself usually incorporates a locking mechanism to retain each control button in its depressed or actuated position. A stop or release button control is depressed to release the mechanical lock allowing the actuated function control buttons to return to idle or rest position.
It can be appreciated, that portable type cassette recorders of this configuration do not lend themselves readily to dictation and certainly are most difficult to utilize if it is desired to transcribe material recorded on the cassette tape, although on many occasions it would be desirable to utilize such inexpensive type tape players for transcription.